Fence-stay



(No Model.)

Y MA on O E G WN E TUF L 7 No. 582,110. Patented May 4. 1897.

*rnrns ATENT ries.

FENCE-STAY.

$PECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 582,110, dated May 4, 1897. Application filed June 20, 1896. Serial No. 596,330. (No model.)

T0 at whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, LORENZO J. WooLsEY,

of Egypt, in the county of Monroe and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Fence-Stays; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it pertains to make and use it, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification.

My invention relates to improvements in fene'estays; and it consists in a fence-stay of the peculiar shapehereinafter fullydescribed, and particularly pointed out in the claim.

The object of my invention is to provide a fence-stay having peculiar bends whereby the stay can be placed on the fence strands or wires by endwise movement and then looked there by a quarter-turn of the stay and held in said locked position by means of the hooked ends of the stay.

Figure 1 is a perspective View of one of the stays, the fence-wires being shown in dotted lines and the stay in the position before being locked. Fig. 2 is a view of a stay, showing the fence-wires in position and the stayturned to its locked position. Fig. 3 is an enlarged side View of one of the stays and a portion of the fence-wire, showing the same in a locked position. Fig. 4 is a View taken at right angles to Fig. 3, looking in the direction indicated by arrow. Fig. 5 is a plan View of the lower end of the stay.

Referring now to the drawings, A indicates the fence wires or strands to which my stay is applied.

B is the main portion of the stay, having throughout its length a plurality of curved bends a, which extend laterally therefrom, and these curved bends are provided with the laterally-extending loops 1), which extend in a direction approximately at right angles to the curved portion a and are doubled around, forming what may be aptly termed a series of eye-loops. From this it will be seen that the eyes or loops I) extend at right angles to the curved portions a, and in practice will form locking eyes or loops in a manner to be presently described.

In Fig. 1 the stay is shown in an unlocked position and the fence-wires represented by dotted lines. In this position the stay is applied to the fence-wires by passing them through the passages d and then permitting the stay to drop or move downward, which carries the wires A of the fence against the under sides of the curved portions 0. of the main portions I; of the stay. Now bya quarter-turn of the stay the locking loops or eyes I) are carried under the fence-wires A, and they are thus locked between the loops and the inner or under sides of the curved portions a. In this position the stay cannot be moved vertically upon the wires, nor can the wires at these points he moved toward each other. -The stay is held in this turned position by the locking-arms e at opposite ends thereof, the said arms having eyes or hooks f, adapted to be caught over the top and bottom fence-wires, as clearly shown in Fig. 2.

Then it is desired to detach the stay, it is only necessary to unhook the locking-arms e from the fence-wires, when it can be removed therefrom.

I am aware it is not novel to provide a stay having locking-loops adapted to lock the wires by a turn of the stay and that it is not new to provide the stay with a locking arm or arms for holding it in the locked position. In

this instance, however, the locking-loops extend parallel with the curved portions of the main portions of the stay, and in fact only serves to form eyes in the main stay, one portion of the locking-loop forming part of the eye.

In my invention the main portion of the stay has a curved portion, and at one end of the curved portion is formed a locking-eye which extends practically at right angles to the curved portion of the stay, whereby when the stay is given a quarter-turn the wire is absolutely locked between the locking-eyes and the curved portions of the stay, and the wires cannot become released from this locked position by a lateral bend of the eye or curved portion of the main part of the stay, as will be readily understood from the drawings.

It will be noticed that the main portion of the stay just adjacent to the curved or bent portion a is bent laterally, as shown at 2', and that the inner sides of the locking loops or eyes are separated from the main portion of the stay to form the passage-ways cl for the fence-Wires'when the stay is being applied thereto.

Having thus fully described my invention, What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

A fence-stay consisting of a main portion having a curved bend, a horizontal lateral bend at the end of the curved bend, then doubled inward between the end of the curved to bend and the main portion of the stay, form- 

